Mr. Speaker, I was going to say that they were all over the map, but I will not, and will instead try to bring my colleague back on track.
He was surprised to hear the Bloc Quebecois speaking about francophones outside Quebec. My answer is that he will perhaps have an opportunity to speak shortly, and while the others have the floor, he can look in the red book where the Liberal party tells us what it is going to do for francophones outside Quebec. We will no doubt be treated to the great insights of the writers of the red book and the wonderful French of the quotation, which my colleague, the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, can be counted on to read us in a few minutes when he has found it.
To help him out, I will tell him that his neighbour, the member for Ottawa-Vanier, would rather collect money to oppose legislation that has been prepared and presented by a democratically elected national assembly in Quebec, than defend francophones, who will see their assistance cut in Ontario. We will not get into the economics of it, because they are already having such a terrible time with numbers.
I would just like to point out to my colleague that when he says that 16.2 per cent of young people between this age and that speak one of the two official languages, that does not mean they are speaking French, because one of the two official languages could be either French or English. In other words, 16.2 per cent of young people speak one of the two official languages, which probably means French or English. One could therefore interpret this to mean that 16.2 per cent, or a proportion, of these people speak French and English.
I am answering his questions with other questions, because clarification is required. If his statistics also come from the federal government, there is a problem, and we could have a debate, because Statistics Canada, in its catalogue No. 96-313F on languages in Canada, says that 29 per cent of people spoke French in 1951, while the percentage was 24 in 1991. Mathematics is not my strong suit, but 29 take away 24 leaves 5 per cent fewer people speaking French. This means that the number of people speaking French in Canada can certainly not have increased by a third. I could be wrong. The numbers come from Statistics Canada. In line with my earlier suggestion, if the Liberal government is not happy with the data provided by Statistics Canada, it can either replace its chief statistician or abolish it altogether.